Birds Saliva Nest Pineapple Cakes (燕窝黄梨酥)

Birds Saliva Nest Pineapple Cakes (燕窝黄梨酥)

 “Birds Saliva Nest incorporated into pineapple paste filling, just feeling luscious this Lunar festival.”

Making these into cake blocks in order to stuff in more Birds Saliva Nest into its pineapple filling. The chunks of pineapple cake would look more generous this way.
Same pineapple filling recipe I had previously, or even store-bought readymade kind of pineapple paste will do the job. Only the crust was made with slight difference this time.

Ingredients

400g plain flour
2 tablespoons of milk powder
4 tablespoons of icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
250g of cold unsalted butter, cubed
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
4 tablespoons of cold water
10g of dried Birds Saliva Nest pieces (燕窝碎)
1 thumb-sized rick sugar
400g pineapple paste filling
Egg wash (Optional):
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of evaporated milk

Method

(1) Birds Saliva Nest: Soak Birds Saliva Nest in filtered (or room temperature drinking) water in a glass bowl, for 30 minutes. Drain until just about 1 tablespoon of water remains. Place rock sugar on the soaked Birds Saliva Nest. Steam for 1 hour, or until Birds Saliva Nest expanded and softened till jelly-like consistency. Cool, drain away excessive liquid, and set aside.
(2) Mix Birds Saliva Nest into pineapple paste. Then, divide Birds Saliva Nest pineapple paste into small balls of about size of 20cents. Set aside.
(3) Crust: Combine plain flour, milk powder, icing sugar and salt. Sieve into a large mixing bowl. Rub butter cubes onto the flour mixture with your finger tips, until all butter cubes are used up and flour mixture turns sand-like crumbs. Mix in cold water to form dough. Simply gather the crumbs and form into dough will do. Do not need extra kneading.
(4) Place crumbly dough on a large sheet of cling wrap. Wrap it and store in the fridge for 30 minutes. Bring out to cool a little, oil your palm, and start dividing the dough to make crust.
(5) Flatten each part of dough by kneading it, or lay a sheet of cling wrap on the dough and use rolling pin to roll over to flatten it. Place a ball of Birds Saliva Nest pineapple in the middle of the dough, wrap around and seal the opening. Place it into your desired mould design to form shapes, arrange each pineapple cake dough onto lined baking tray. Repeat steps for the rest.
(6) Bake on preheated oven at 160deg Celsius, for about 10 minutes. Combine egg yolk and milk. Brush thin layer of egg wash on the surface of the almost baked pineapple cakes, continue baking for another 2 minutes. Leave cakes to cool on rack before storage, or serve.

Each pineapple cake counts about 100kcal.

Tips: Birds Saliva Nest, as we only need it in the mixing, use those types in loose strips, corner or broken pieces which priced cheaper than those in whole complete piece. Broken pieces Birds Saliva Nest costs about $45 for 37.5g of a decent grade.
* If the chilled dough is too crumbly to be kneaded, leave it for a while, or add a little bit of oil either on your palms or onto the dough and it will be softened after some kneading done.
* Line baking tray with parchment paper. Need not to grease the tray.
* It’s ok if you want to use just normal fresh milk for the egg wash.
* In fact, you may omit the egg wash, if desired. Pineapple cakes do not really require egg wash. :)